Families can text the school a question, 24/7

A guardian can text a question to your school number any time — Elira answers from your verified school info, or hands it to your office with one link.

Guardians don't just receive texts — they can text back with a question, any hour, any day, in English, Spanish or Arabic. Elira acts like a 24/7 member of your front office.

What Elira will answer on her own

Only what your school has put on file — settings you control on the School info page plus what's on your AI Knowledge tab:

• Office hours, phone, and how to reach staff
• What time school starts and lets out, including a regular half day
• Registration deadlines, required documents, and the registration link
• Your posted events (open houses, orientation, tryouts)
• Notes you've typed for her ("Parent Teacher Conference — 1PM dismissal")
• "What happens next" after registration, if you've filled that in

Every automatic answer comes only from that verified info. Elira checks the full answer against its cited school facts, including translated answers; an uncertain or unavailable check sends the question to your office. Elira never guesses — and she is deliberately strict about dates:

• "What time is dismissal Wednesday?" — she answers from your school hours, unless a note or event for that day says otherwise, in which case that wins.
• "Is there school Friday?" — she answers when a dated event or a dated note covers that day, and, once you've set up "Is there school tomorrow?", on any ordinary day inside your school year too. Your weekly school hours alone are *not* enough, because a normal-week schedule can't know about a holiday or a snow day.
• "Is there school on October 12?" — when a family names an actual date, that date is checked against your calendar, your notes and your school year before Elira is allowed to answer at all. If nothing on file covers that exact day, the question goes to your office even if your calendar is full of other dates. This is checked in our code rather than left to her judgement, so it works the same way in English, Spanish and Arabic.

A few things she settles herself, in code, before any AI is involved:

• A weekend. Once your school week is known — from your school hours, or from an uploaded year calendar — "is there school Saturday?" gets "There is no school on Saturday, September 5 — it is not a school day." A Saturday event you posted still goes through normally.
• A day you marked closed. "Is there school today?" on a date your calendar has as a closure is answered outright — *"School is closed on Monday, October 12, 2026 — Indigenous Peoples' Day."* — in English, Spanish or Arabic, using your own name for the day and dropping the "NO SCHOOL" your calendar prints after it. A dated note or a staff answer for that same day still wins over the calendar row.
• When your year starts and ends. "When is the last day of school?" is answered from the first and last day on your "Is there school tomorrow?" card, however long your calendar is.
• A break spread over several rows. A calendar read off a PDF stores Winter Break as nine separate closed days; Elira states it as one span — when it starts, when it ends, and the morning school is back — so "when is winter break?" gets an answer instead of your office.
• A date that cannot exist. "September 300th" gets "September only has 30 days — which date did you mean?" rather than a message to your office. A month name with one typo ("Septmber") is read as the month meant.
• Another person's details. A request for a student's or another family's email, phone or address is declined outright — "We do not share contact details or any information about students or other families" — with your office number for anything legitimate behind it. Staff contacts from your directory are still answered.
• Your own answers win. Once your office has answered "what time is dismissal?", Elira answers it from those words even before school hours are on file.

When she's not sure — your office gets it

Sensitive-topic limits apply in English, Spanish, and Arabic. A question about our child gets the same private staff handoff as one about my child.

Anything Elira can't answer from your info (or anything sensitive — IEP specifics, medical, legal, discipline, money) goes straight to your office:

1. The guardian instantly gets: *"<Your school>: great question — I've passed it to the office team and they'll text you back here soon."* (in their language). One exception. If a family asks *who* to contact about something — "who do I contact if my child is being bullied?" — and your staff directory has no entry that answers it, Elira gives them your main office number straight away instead of asking them to wait, and still files the question for you. Where to bring a concern is not private, and telling a worried parent to wait is the wrong answer. If you have published no office number she says nothing about one rather than inventing it. The other way round too: when the question is about a family's own child on a sensitive topic — "who do I contact about my child's IEP?" — Elira does not answer it from your staff directory at all. It goes to your office with your number attached, because a parent asking that has asked for a person. "Who is the special education coordinator?" is a staff fact and is still answered.
2. The question appears in [AI Knowledge](/dashboard/ai-knowledge) on your dashboard, and once an hour your office gets one email listing every question still waiting, with an Improve AI Knowledge button under each (Answer for this family when it is about one child) — use whichever is handier. Its subject is AE - 3 family questions waiting - <your school name>, so it's easy to spot or filter. It goes to the Director of Operations — Email in Enrollment details on Enrollment → Settings, or to your account email if that is empty. Questions someone already answered on the dashboard are left out, and if that was all of them, no email is sent.
3. Whatever your staff types is texted back to the family — and Elira learns it for both the text line and the chat bubble on your website, so she can answer it herself next time — unless Only for this family (Elira does not learn it) is ticked. It is ticked for you when the question looks like it is about one child's own records; untick it if your answer is true for every family.

Teach Elira from your dashboard

The AI Knowledge tab lists every question waiting for an answer and everything Elira has already learned. Answer one in the Teach Elira card and press Teach Elira & reply: it trains both places Elira talks to families at once — no separate step for the website chat (a family-only answer trains neither). Write a full sentence that names the topic: Elira reuses the answer without showing the parent’s question. A hint appears below the answer box when the topic seems missing; you can still save the answer. The same tab holds Tell Elira notes, your staff directory, your calendars and documents, and your event flyers — so when a family asks for the open-house flyer, Elira can send the link.

Prefer to watch? For charter schools, the video at the top of this page (1:14, with captions) shows answering a question Elira couldn't — from her email, or in the Teach Elira card — and changing an answer she has learned. The same video sits above Teach Elira on AI Knowledge, and every tutorial video is listed under Tutorials on the support page.

Good to know

• Replies mirror the guardian's language (English, Spanish or Arabic) and stay short enough for a normal text message. That includes your own replies: on AI Knowledge a Spanish or Arabic question is shown with its English wording, you answer in English, and the family gets your answer in their language — times, dates and phone numbers kept exactly. If the translation cannot be checked, the reply is held for a retry rather than sent wrong. A family who texts in any other language is never answered automatically — the question goes to your office with their original wording, so a person can reply properly instead of Elira answering in a language they didn't write in.
• A family who texted STOP is never replied to — opt-outs are always honored.
• Questions answered by your office build up Elira's knowledge over time: the more you answer, the fewer reach you.